Value For Money

Guest's review of Power Craft 7944

Purchased from Aldi. A very powerful machine for the money which was approximately half the price of the equivalent Karcher model. I was told that Karcher make this Powercraft model raft and it does look and feel the same. That said there are some reservations:

Some of the parts, in particular, the hose inlet and outlet connections are very cheap and not up to the job. Where the actual gun hose connects to the water outlet on the machine it is a screw connector. This is made of plastic and it gave a lot of trouble. Even after screwing and tightening it fully, under pressure it just 'blows off' and then water spurts out of the machine. After almost giving up on it I managed to track a specialist repair shop in Manchester. He managed to supply a new hose for £29 which had a brass connector. This sorted the problem out but a machine this powerful under pressure should have been fitted with metal connectors in the first place.

I also had problems with the electric side of it. It kept cutting out on me and again the specialist told me that you have to unravel the electric extension lead completely as it has restricted power when on the role and this causes it to overheat. Again, this managed to sort out the cutting out problem but there is no mention of any of this in the instructions or in the 'problem solving' section.

On the plus side when it is actually working it is very good. I use a hose with a rotary end which I purchased as an extra. This increases the power by about an extra 30 bars. When using it with this device it is capable of cleaning my blocked drive and crazy paving without the need for any detergent. One final tip is that I am told that because the machine has also cheap plastic parts inside, when storing for winter you need to make sure that it is completely drained of water or the frost will burst and split the hoses and connectors when you get it out the following Spring!